The Dodo Archive

Crocs And Gators Apparently Understand The Key To Success

Toward the end of "Jurassic Park," the park's game warden is hunting down an escaped velociraptor when he's ambushed from the side by a second dinosaur - and then it's over as soon as you could utter "Clever girl."

As part of his PhD research studying crocodile communication, Dinets noticed several instances of what appeared to be crocodilians hunting in groups. He also encountered stories of cooperative hunting in crocs and alligators, some dating back to the 19th century. "I immediately started seeing all kinds of behavior that had never been described in scientific literature," he tells The Dodo in an email.

Dinets says the reports "prove what croc researchers and native people have known all along: crocs and gators are smart, cunning, very effective predators." (Gator brains also pack more computing power per volume than those of mammals or birds.) He points to the works of Rudyard Kipling, for example, who wrote about crafty crocodiles a hundred years ago.

That crocodiles and alligators are actually collaborating, however, is less certain. As Dinets writes in the study: "Was it really mutual cooperation, or were some animals simply snatching prey that was being pursued by others?"

The answer, he writes, will ultimately require more observation in an area of research that's both young and takes place "in often unpleasant field conditions (to put it mildly)." But it's also a field ripe for new discovery. These species are more socially complex than history has given credit - like the fact that baby crocodiles "chat" with their moms.

"There's so much we don't know about crocodilians," Dinets says. "You have to constantly pass by interesting things because you don't have time to study them."

This post has been updated to clarify the brainpower of a 400-pound American alligator.